C'mon, if you didn't have one too many on New Years Eve, chances are you had a bit to imbibe yesterday on New Years Day with the Rose Parade. Maybe you wanted to sober up with a stop at Starbucks and grab a fresh Frappacino. But, maybe in your slightly inebriated state you missed your destination by a block and instead stopped at Exit 6 Pub and Brewery, in Cottleville, Missouri. Luckily for you, when you muttered the word Frappacino, the attendant poured you a fresh one from the tap. Yikes, it was beer and not coffee. You looked around and realized you were in an unfamiliar small independent bar and not the standard, uniform confines of the huge Starbucks chain. Gone was the Starbucks green circle with the queen mermaid in it (or whoever she is). No one asked if you wanted a Vente or Grande. They just brought you a glass -- not a paper cup. Damn, you were taken. You were fooled. It's as if you had just crossed over the line and found yourself in a modern day episode of the TWILIGHT ZONE.

Well, as silly as this sounds, check out the attached video. It seems everyone's favorite coffee shop, the Mega huge Starbucks, took umbridge and issued a cease and desist letter to the owners of Exit 6 Pub and Brewery. This single location bar's response to the demand letter is nothing short of hysterical -- snarkiness to the "nth" degree. The entire correspondence can be found here, courtesy of HuffPo. The back and forth between both Starbucks' lawyers and Exit 6 Pub's proprietor is priceless.

From now on, Frappacino Beer at Exit 6 Pub will be henceforth be known as 'F-word beer' to avoid any confusion. And so there's no hard feelings and in a show of good faith, Exit 6 Pub returned the entire $6 profit made from the mistake. Now if that teaser has you wanting to know more, check out the hysterical news coverage of this brew-haha (intentionally misspelled) below:

Perhaps the closest parallel to the "war on drugs" is the war on alcohol -- the Volstead Act of of 1919. Highlights from Wiki:

The three distinct purposes of the Act were:

1. to prohibit intoxicating beverages
2. to regulate the manufacture, sale, or transport of intoxicating liquor (but not consumption), and
3. to ensure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye and other lawful industries and practices, such as religious rituals.

It provided further that "no person shall manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, or furnish any intoxicating liquor except as authorized by this act." It did not specifically prohibit the use of intoxicating liquors.

In 1933, after this "experiment" proved to be an utter failure, leading to massive deaths caused by bootleggers and a growth in the mob for the purposes of providing this contraband, the government passed the the Twenty-first Amendment rendering the Volstead Act unconstitutional and restored control of alcohol to the states.

It was a tragic right-wing plan to control the masses and under the guise of protecting them, really caused more deaths and imposed more prison sentences for a low risk, non-violent crime -- drinking. By their restrictions, they generated an environment of death and destruction far greater than the booze itself.

Maybe we're about to smarten up on the current "war on drugs," specifically marijuana. With a number of states lessening their restrictions on usage, a few even allowing people to participate recreationally, sanity seems to be without our reach. The importance of this isn't so people can get high. It's important that our rights are being snatched from us with restrictions that have a disproportionate number of poor and minorities caught up in the government web.

Here's a short summation that's as concise and succinct as I've ever seen. It's worth a gander: